Posted on 09/22/2003 8:26:54 AM PDT by Alouette
A group of settlers has begun buying land around Rachel's Tomb outside Bethlehem in an effort to keep the area in Jewish hands.
Part of the security fence, an eight-meter-high concrete barrier with electronic sensors, is planned to run just south of the tomb, thereby including the holy site on the Israeli side of the fence.
Rabbi Hanan Porat, a former National Religious Party MK and a leading figure in the settlement movement, confirmed that "Jews who want to identify actively with the return to Zion" have funded the purchase of several plots of land near the tomb.
Porat noted that the initiative is part of a larger effort to buy land all over historical Judea and Samaria. He said the group has already purchased the homes that once belonged to Jews of the Yishuv.
He added that other deals are in progress, but refused to elaborate, noting the sensitivity of the subject.
Porat founded a kollel (yeshiva for married students) in Rachel's Tomb a few years ago. The students and other worshipers are bused to the site in armored buses from Jerusalem, whose municipal boundaries are just some 450 meters from the tomb.
The tomb which is now surrounded by a heavily fortified compound was the site of bloody clashes between Palestinian youth and gunmen and IDF soldiers during the start of the current wave of violence.
Many Jews had feared the projected fence would not include Rachel's Tomb, but the plan the Sharon government tabled apparently includes the site and a few homes south of it. Last year, Porat said, it was unclear "whether Rachel's tomb would remain beyond or within the fence," which supposedly led his group's accelerated pace of purchase around the site.
The purchase of homes in east Jerusalem, the Old City, the Mount of Olives, and other disputed locales has been a primary project of American millionaire and casino owner Irving Moskowitz for several years.
The next smart move would be to arm all the settlers.
A group of settlers has begun buying land around Rachel's Tomb outside Bethlehem in an effort to keep the area in Jewish hands. known in some circles as stealing land from the Arabs.
Exactly. The islamophiles subscribe to a bizarre concept of property rights where any inch of land upon which a mohamadan has so much as relieved himself permanently belongs to the adherents of mohamadism for all time. It doesn't matter if that land was stolen by them from somebody else, or if somebody else buys it from them.
Oh, man, I thought the Jews were good with business matters. This is shocking that in today's world of limitless victims who keep multiplying like rabbits on Viagra that someone should actually remember the days when one actually had to pay for ones own way.
I'm shocked.
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